Yet another tale of Daecheon

I didn't have the courtesy of announcing it this time, but I had yet another vacation the previous week. Last week was Chusok (sp?), which is a big Korean holiday where most business's close on tuesday, thursday, and friday. The kids have the week off from school, and I had the pleasure of having a one-day work week. Wednesday is referred to as "sandwich day", since it falls between two holidays. Thankfully, our hogwan was gracious enough to close on this day, so I only worked monday. With four days off, I felt a little traveling was in order. Having learned about this vacation in short notice, the best idea was to travel around Korea.

My first trip was a peaceful jaunt back to the familiar confines of Daecheon Beach. Having been there twice before, I found it an entirely different experience than the first two. Each trip to this beach has produced a totally different atmosphere. This time proved to be the most peaceful. The idea was to catch the last bastion of warm weather for the season and read a good book on the beach. Mission acccomplished on both fronts. The weather was beautiful and the reading was spectacular.




The first couple of times I had been to this beach, it had been very crowded. This time, however, it was nearly vacant, at least, by Korean standards. I took a picture of this street because it is a site I rarely ever see in Korea. There's absolutely noone in site! Not a soul on this street, which was buzzing the last time I visited. Ahhh, this is the way to enjoy a book. The book of choice was QB VII, by Leon Uris, and I knocked out most of it that afternoon on the beach. Uris has a style I enjoy in which he employs the use of short chapters to keep the pages turning. When I know I can knock out a chapter in a few minutes, I'm much more prone to continue.

QB VII is a story written in four parts. Part one is the story of a Dr. Adam Kelno. Dr. Kelno is a Polish nationalist hero who had spent time in the hellish German World War II prison camp in Jadwiga. Kelno moved to England after the war for political asylum. Poland, now communist, is trying to extradite him on charges of performing experimental surgeries on Jewish prisoners under the watch of German war criminals. Thus, he is accused of being a war criminal himself. Because of political reasons, England is reticent to extradite him to communist Poland, and holds him in Brixton prison for two years until his name is cleared. Kelno then moves to the far east to practice medicine on a remote third world island.

Part two shifts gears to a character by the name of Abraham Cady. Abe Cady is a Jewish novelist who had suffered his own versions of hell in the war. He had somehow survived himself, but had lost many family members in the holocaust. His early career after the war is one of writing pulpy novels and screenplays, but his underlying aspiration is to go to newly formed Israel and write an enlightening and honest novel about the Jews and the holocaust.

In part three, Cady writes his novel with much blood, sweat, and tears. It becomes an instant international success, but he runs into a snag. One paragraph in the book implicates Dr. Kelno as performing brutal experimental surgeries in Jadigwa. Dr. Kelno, now a knighted surgeon in England, sues him for libel and demands the book be recalled.

Part four is the actual trial, in which the true character of each, um, character comes out. It is an intriguiging and educational story, which casts an enlightening glance on many aspects of post WWII life, including Jewish nationalism, Polish communism and nationlism, and the English commonwealth. I would not give away the ending, but I do wish to highly recommend this novel and give the real reason for my lengthy description. And I digress...

There is a character who emerges in the second half of the book by the name of Dr. Dimshits. Having described the serious nature and academic value of this book, I have to say I laughed every time I came across this name. I have no idea why Mr. Uris chose this name, as I would have used "Dr. Jackass" or "Buttlicker, M.D.". It reminded me of a story a fellow English teacher told me a couple of weeks back about her friend who worked in an inner-city high school. One of her students names was, get this: "Shithead" (pronounced shi-theed). I'll go ahead and say it: If one wants to get on this blog, all they need is a funny name.

Anyway, back to the beach. After spending the entire afternoon reading, I visited my favorite sauna in Korea and had a sea water bath and then a mud bath. That evening I went back to the same place I had been with Pam and friends the first time, and then with Gina and Sacha the second. This time, I took a picture of the delicious grilled scallops. Notice again how there's noone else around. This was my third time eating the same thing at the same place, and each experience was distinctively different. All of them were very good.




After dinner, I went back to the beach and watched the sunset. It was a little hazy on the horizon, and didn't hold a candle to what I witnessed in Thailand. Still, it sure beat teaching. I chilled in this spot for a long time and then turned in at my cozy cheap hotel room. This was the first small leg of the vacation. I arrived back in Suwon Wednesday evening, and had a ticket booked for Gyeongju on Friday morning. "What is Gyeongju?", you say. Stay tuned, and I'll tell you all about it.